USDA denies Iowa plan for delivery of summer food boxes

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has denied Iowa’s proposed plan to provide boxes of food to low-income households with children next summer rather than participate in the federal food benefits program.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ administration submitted a waiver request to the USDA seeking to opt out of its Summer Expanded Benefits Transfer (EBT) program, now called SUN Bucks.

The federal program provides $120 per child to low-income families to make food purchases during the summer when children are out of school. Instead, the state requested to use federal funding to provide three monthly boxes of food during the summer to qualifying food-insecure households.

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Reynolds has said her proposal would feed more children at a lower cost than the USDA program, while promoting healthier foods.

Reynolds and Kelly Garcia, director of the Iowa Department of Health and Humans Service, have pointed to Iowa’s childhood obesity rates in expressing the need to have a program that focuses on nutrition.

The governor, in a statement to The Gazette, said the state will reapply for the waiver next year under President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration.

“As I’ve said from the start, our summer feeding demonstration project would feed nearly 60,000 more Iowa children than the USDA’s SUN Bucks program, with healthier, more nutritious food at a lower cost through bulk buying,” Reynolds said in a statement.

“Our plan also addresses transportation challenges by offering food box deliveries for eligible recipients — an option not available through the summer EBT program. We look forward to presenting our plan to the new administration.”

Opting out

Iowa did not participate in the SUN Bucks program this summer that would have provided families an additional $40 per month for every child who qualifies for a free or reduced price lunch at school to purchase groceries in June, July and August to make up for missing school meals.

In doing so, the state turned down $29 million in federal funding to provide food assistance to estimated 240,000 Iowa children. The state of Iowa would have paid about $2.2 million to administer the program.

Instead, Reynolds devoted $900,000 of federal pandemic relief funding to start a new state grant program that supported 61 new free summer meal sites for Iowa children in low-income families.

Waiver request

Under the waiver request, Iowa would use the federal funding to support a state program to offer healthy foods at distribution sites in June, July and August 2025.

Reynolds’ office said the state program would be expanded to include families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level — $25,820 for a family of three or $36,580 for a family of five. The current eligibility cap on the federal program is 185 percent of the poverty level.

The state estimates the program would be available to 300,000 Iowa children — roughly 56,000 more than under SUN Bucks.

An estimated 110,000-plus Iowa children — or 15.4 percent of all Iowans under the age of 18 — were classified as food insecure in 2022, the most recent year data is available, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, food pantries and meal programs.

Also, 79 of the state’s 99 counties had child food insecurity rates of at least 13.1 percent.

Waiver denial

The USDA and Iowa Hunger Coalition contend the best way to fight food insecurity and help low-income families is to provide direct financial assistance and allow parents to make food choices that best fit their family’s dietary needs.

Vista Suarez Fletcher, Midwest regional administrator for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, wrote a letter to Garcia dated Oct. 4 denying the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services’ waiver request.

Fletcher, in the letter obtained by The Gazette, said the Summer EBT program is backed by more than a decade of demonstration projects and evaluation showing it to be “a proven strategy that significantly reduced hunger and improved diet quality.”

“The goals of any demonstration projects funded under this authority are to find ways to reduce or eliminate food insecurity and improve the nutritional status of children,” the letter stated. “ … The proposed demonstration project does not provide compelling evidence of the potential benefits of an untested alternative model rather than implementing the research-backed Summer EBT.”

Fletcher wrote there is limited federal funding to support summer feeding demonstration projects, and that existing SUN bucks options already provide meal site and delivery models contained in the Iowa proposal.

The nationwide Summer EBT program also has demonstrated capacity to reach more eligible children, whereas summer meal sites have historically had low levels of participation, Fletcher wrote.

The USDA anticipates as many as 21 million U.S. children benefited from EBT cards used to distribute grocery benefits to eligible children this summer, compared to less than 4 million children nationwide reached through meal distribution sites.

‘Future conversations’

Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Spokesman Alex Murphy said in a statement to The Gazette on Friday that agency staff “eagerly await future conversations with the new administration about how we can meet the goals we outlined in our application.”

Echoing Reynolds, Murphy said the state’s proposal expands eligibility to serve more children, leverages Iowa’s already established statewide network of summer feeding programs and partners, and uses wholesale pricing “to stretch dollars further and provide more healthy food to feed hungry kids.”

“Our demonstration project was crafted with Iowa’s children and families in mind — with feedback from community providers who know and serve Iowa’s families each and every day.”

The Gazette’s Erin Murphy contributed to this report

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com